The Court of Appeal rejected the bail request of jailed Beehive Radio
director Mam Sonando at a brief hearing in the capital today, saying
that thanks to his dual citizenship, the septuagenarian was a flight
risk and, furthermore, posed a threat to public order.

If granted, the request filed by Sonando — who was convicted in
October on charges of insurrection widely derided as baseless by rights
groups and foreign governments — would have allowed the ailing head of
the Association of Democrats to remain outside of prison until his
appeal.

Sa Sovan, Sonando’s attorney, said that he had filed the request for
bail because of his client’s health concerns, and that its rejection was
not the end of the line.

“Now, I am preparing another appeal to the Supreme Court to ask for bail for my client,” he said.

Rupert Abbott, a researcher for Amnesty International who attended
the hearing, said that the court’s decision “may not have been
surprising, but it was still disappointing,” and that its rationale —
that Sonando was a flight risk and a threat to public order — was
ill-founded.

“In terms of the latter, a threat to public order, I don’t think he’s
ever shown himself to be that before,” he said. “In terms of being a
flight risk, the obvious counterargument to that — and that is what his
defence argued — is that he came back to face justice. He came back from
his trip abroad to Europe and the US. He definitely embraced the
Cambodian side of his citizenship.”

Abbott said that Amnesty International would continue to call for
Sonando’s release, and that while the original conviction was
unjustified, there was still hope.

“We can see from the first case that the decision that was made was
not based on the evidence, so there was obviously something else
influencing the decision-making process,” he said.

But, he added, “We have seen in the case of Boeng Kak lake, that
[jailed activists] were released... We’ve seen the courts overturn
convictions and order releases, so we have to remain hopeful.”

The independent radio director was convicted on a handful of charges
stemming from his alleged masterminding of a so-called “secessionist
plot” in Kratie province’s Pro Ma village, which in May was the site of
the forced eviction of hundreds of families involved in a long-running
land dispute with agro-business company Casotim.

A 14-year-old girl was shot dead by government forces in the process.

The government called the eviction an “anti-secessionist raid”,
despite repeated denials of separatism from villagers, and claims from
rights groups that the official explanation was simply a cover for the
eviction itself.

Kim Sary, a member of the Association of Democrats from Kratie
province who came to the capital to support Sonando, also expressed
disappointment in today’s decision.

“Right now Mam Sonando is sick, and Mam Sonando never escaped from the country,” she said.

“Why not release him from detention? He dared to come face the law, so the court should release him from detention.”

Sary also voiced her discontent with the 200 or so riot police who
blocked her and a roughly equal number fellow demonstrators — some from
the Association of Democrats and some from the displaced Boeng Kak and
Borei Keila communities — from coming near the court of appeals, where
the hearing was held.

Cambodian Center for Human Rights President Ou Virak said that he had been optimistic before the hearing.

“The appeals court rarely reverses the decision of the Phnom Penh
court because they don’t want to find fault with the Phnom Penh court,
so in the past the bail was the way out [for wrongfully convicted
people]; that’s how they do it,” he said.

“We hoped that maybe the tide had turned a bit and the government and
Hun Sen were saying, ‘that’s enough of a crackdown’... but I guess the
backwards movement and the repression of human rights continues.”

“The convict ion was a political one and the decision to let him free
will be a political one,” he added. “So we just have to see what the
political situation is at that time.”

Din Phanara, Sonando’s wife, said that even after the ruling, she remained hopeful.

“Today, I am very disappointed because my husband was not granted
bail, but I still believe in the judicial system in Cambodia that it
will provide justice for my husband, and my husband will be free in the
near future,” she said.

5 comments:

You are right to call him MAD DOG.Let use this word to call him.When the problem is country wide he call us to measure land. What he will use next? We are not the DOGS of the MAD DOG. A CHOR MAD Dog.អាជោ​​អាឆ្កែឆ្កួតA Cambodian student

Between Tea Banh and Hun Sen, who would you support? គាំទ្រ ហ៊ុន សែន ឬ ទា បាញ់?

Between Hun Sen and Sok An, who would you support? គាំទ្រ ហ៊ុន​ សែន ឬ សុខ អាន?

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